


Okay

by anonymousdaredevils



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality, Coming Out, M/M, Sex-Repulsed Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 17:02:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4027825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousdaredevils/pseuds/anonymousdaredevils
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Somehow it never occurred to him that he might have to come out again someday because he got it <b>wrong</b> the first time.</i>
</p><p>For a prompt on the Daredevil kink meme:</p><p>Matt thought Foggy was into it and didn't mind doing him a favour now and then.<br/>Foggy thought Matt was into it and didn't mind doing him a favour now and then.</p><p>Neither of them are into it and both are awful at communication.</p><p>(Full prompt and warnings in the preliminary note.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Full prompt:
> 
> "Ace!Matt/Ace!Foggy - Does that mean we can finally stop doing that?
> 
> Matt thought Foggy was into it and didn't mind doing him a favour now and then.  
> Foggy thought Matt was into it and didn't mind doing him a favour now and then.
> 
> Neither of them are into it and both are awful at communication. And when they finally do communicate, it becomes pretty clear why their sex has been awkward and unsuccessful so far.
> 
> Can be as angsty or even funny as the author wants."
> 
> I... kind of went with angsty.
> 
> General warning here for uhm. Things that happen when asexual and sex-repulsed people try to just "get through" sex.
> 
> Also, disabled asexual (and sex-repulsed) anon here who is uncomfortably familiar with the forced desexualization of disabled people and who constantly struggles with the question of whether or not my disabilities (among other things) have directly "caused" my orientation. I know it's a narrative a lot of disabled aces have dealt with and it would have felt dishonest to completely leave that factor out of Matt's story. However, I am sighted, and I really, really hope I haven't crossed a line.

It's not like Matt _hates_ it. He just... doesn't get much out of it. Physically, yes, he's up for it, he finishes, but he doesn't enjoy it the way he thinks other people must, for as often as they want to do it and talk about it and are willing to literally kill for it.  
  
After his third awkward college attempt to explain himself to a partner had ended with said partner gasping and whispering, horrified, “Is it because you're blind?”, he... kind of decided explaining isn't really worth it. No one ever gets it and maybe one day that story will be something to laugh at, retell with dramatic voices, _is it because you're BLIND?_ , but all these years later it still just _stings_.  
  
And the first two had just thought it was an excuse to break up with them. Which it had in fact turned into, after that.  
  
And things are good with Foggy. Things are _great_ with Foggy. They don't even have sex all that often and Matt can deal with it, honestly. He's _attracted_ to Foggy, sexually attracted even, but sexual attraction, for Matt, has never quite turned into an actual desire to _do_ sexual _things_. Beyond, like, making out. Even that's a stretch sometimes, because with super senses comes super sensory overload, and, just, some days Matt _really_ can't deal with having someone else's tongue in his mouth.  
  
That one, he explains. Foggy gets it, and never pushes, if Matt says his senses are too on edge for kissing. Occasionally, they're too on edge for sex, and he's honest about that too because – well, because sex while his senses are on their highest alert sounds like _hell_. He feels guilty every time it happens and he resolutely does not ever let himself lie, let himself use it as an _excuse_.  
  
He doesn't hate sex. He just doesn't like it. It doesn't seem important and he wouldn't worry so much about not telling Foggy, except it's getting harder and harder to pretend he's enjoying himself. If Foggy ever notices, he'll probably ask what's wrong, and Matt doesn't know what he can possibly say to that. Sorry, sex just seems really boring to me, I'm not really into it but you seem to like it so I put up with it for your sake? Nothing personal, it's not you, it's me? Yeah. Great. Not insulting at all.  
  
He loves Foggy. He can keep pretending to love sex, too.  
  
He hopes.  
  


* * *

  
Foggy hates it. Has always hated it. Put it down to inexperience when he was younger, but, as the experience racked up and Foggy was still spending too many mornings after shaking in the shower, he had to admit there was something else going on.  
  
The thing is it took him until, like, this _year_ to figure out what that something else _is_.  
  
Marci was the first person he told, back before he knew any words for it, and he begged her to just – just help him _fix_ it. Marci didn't know the words, either, so Foggy does not hold it against her that she said yes, and he does not hold it against her that she so obviously _enjoyed_ “teaching” him. He's glad one of them got something out of it. Really.  
  
The look on her face when he nervously took her through the explanation a few months ago made it quite clear she's going to be holding it against  _herself_ for a while. He's not sure what to do about that. He's not sure if there's anything he _can_ do, doesn't even know what they are to each other now. Friends without benefits? He's not even sure they were friends _with_ the benefits. Marci risked her career on Foggy's word and that _means_ something, but they've never discussed it and he thinks probably neither of them knows how to.  
  
But. Marci is not currently the person he is worried about, when it comes to sex.  
  
Foggy is worried about _Matt_.  
  
He loves Matt, is the thing. Loves him – just, _so much_ , as much as he thinks anyone can love another person. And Matt is _hot_ , Foggy is attracted, there is _attraction_ there but there is a _wide_ gulf in Foggy's mind between “that is a good looking person” and “I want to have sex with them.”  
  
Not even a gulf. It's a straight drop. Into an abyss. Desire for sex is nowhere in Foggy's brain at all. It's something he keeps having to remind himself. He's so used to looking for it, searching desperately for any spark of _anything_ – the idea that it's not there to find is a terrifying relief.  
  
And, like, the other thing is, he came out to Matt in undergrad as bisexual. Matt took a little longer, which Foggy privately puts down to partly Catholicism and partly just _Matt_ , with his brooding, self-hating ways (and Matt would have him believe that's _also_ just the Catholicism, but Foggy knows better). Halfway through law school, he just sort of _said_ it one day, out of the blue. Hey, Foggy, I think I'm also bi, did you study for that test on Tuesday?  
  
Foggy knows a little more nowadays, about himself and about the world. There are so many labels to choose from it makes his head spin sometimes.  _Panromantic sex-repulsed asexual_. It sounds like a complicated coffee order and he kind of hates it, hates applying it to himself, but he also kind of loves that all those words _exist_. To tell him he's not a freak.  
  
He's still adjusting. Maybe he won't hate it so much, eventually.  
  
But. The thing is. He _came out to Matt_ , already, as bisexual, and he doesn't know if he has it in him to do it _again_. To come out _now_ , when there's so much more at stake than _gee I hope my Catholic roommate who I hit on within the first five minutes of conversation isn't homophobic, that sure would be awkward_.  
  
And it seems unfair. To Matt. To himself. Just unfair all around, to everyone. You're supposed to come out and then _be out_ , and Foggy has gone through enough terrible high school reunions and strained dinners with distant relatives and a variety of other fun and exciting situations that he knows better than _that_ by now, but. _But_.  
  
Somehow it never occurred to him that he might have to come out again someday because he got it _wrong_ the first time.  
  
It's not like he's thinking of calling up everyone he knows. Hey, guys, you know that list everybody has, where you write down every friend and acquaintance's orientation? Can you cross out bisexual real quick, you're never gonna believe this, I totally fucked up –  
  
He just. He hates it. All of it. All of this. They don't have sex very often but that almost makes it worse; it's irregular and never planned in advance and Foggy is starting to live in fear of it. Actual literal fear. Of sex. With his partner. Who he loves. A lot.  
  
He's been chasing himself in circles on that front for a long time now, because the realization that sex with _Matt freaking Murdock_ , the guy he's had a crush on since the day they met, the guy he now loves with every inch of his heart, the guy he managed to forge a relationship with in the _aftermath_ of finding out he's a _secret vigilante and had been lying to him for years_ –  
  
The fact that sex with Matt is just as awful and horrifying as sex with _anyone else_ was what finally drove Foggy to the internet to do a little more research into the topic. Research beyond his college self's tendency to melodramatically shout or whisper variations of _what is **wrong** with me_ into the ether and angrily browse the campus library for books he was never going to actually read, because they scared him.  
  
And he _knows_ it's not a reflection on how he feels about Matt, but it still twists his insides into guilty knots. He can deal with Matt being a fucking vigilante, but he can't get past _this_?  
  
And he feels so bad, every time Matt says he's not up for something because his senses are turned up too high. Matt's the one with like, an actual _reason_ to not want sex, and Foggy's the one who feels like he's spending half his time lately coming up with excuses and the other half talking himself out of using any of them.  
  
He's got to tell him, he knows that. He thought, at first, that he could just sort of. Just fake it. Forever. Just pretend everything is fine, for Matt, because Matt's life is complicated enough as it is and frankly _so is Foggy's_. But he's starting to feel like he's coming unglued, rattling out of his skin and spending too much of every morning (and almost the entirety of every _morning after_ ) just staring himself down in the bathroom mirror. And he knows the only reason Matt hasn't figured it out already is – well, no such thing as an infallible lie detector, lots of people's heart rates increase when they talk about sex. Foggy thinks his might just beat itself out of his chest one of these days.  
  
He's got to tell him.


	2. Chapter 2

It's a Saturday, and they're between clients, so Matt sleeps in and still wakes up before Foggy does.  
  
They had sex, last night. Matt no longer remembers who exactly initiated it, which seems to happen a lot. Maybe that's how it's supposed to work. Foggy stayed over at Matt's place and they ordered in, and somehow the night ended in sex.  
  
Matt's still kind of wobbly, physically and cognitively speaking, and breakfast feels a little ambitious. He heads to the kitchen (absently flicking lights on as he goes, so Foggy won't stumble around in the dark when he wakes up) and gets started on coffee. Coffee is much more important than breakfast. Coffee is like, _pre_ -breakfast. The most important pre-meal of the day.  
  
He hears when Foggy wakes up, and makes an instant, concentrated effort to tune him out, because Foggy finds it creepy that Matt can be aware of his every move from actual _rooms_ away( _buildings_ away, _streets_ away if he really focuses).  
  
He tries to distract himself by going over last night in his head. Did he respond appropriately, say the right things? He has a sort of mental checklist and feels weird about that, but it helps. He's pretty sure he covered all of it; sometimes he kind of zones out while it's happening. It's annoying, makes things harder to catalogue. He needs to know what Foggy likes and what he doesn't.  
  
Foggy shuffles into the kitchen just in time for Matt to hand him a mug, which he accepts with a quiet _thanks_ and a shaking hand and okay yeah Matt is tuning right back in because something is _wrong_.  
  
“Hey, are you okay?”  
  
Foggy sits down at the counter and takes a sip of burning hot coffee and doesn't even flinch. “Mm. Fine.”  
  
“Foggy.”  
  
“Oh _damn_ it, are you doing that heartbeat thing?” Foggy sets the mug down and hides his hands under the counter. “It's too early for that shit, Matt.”  
  
“Something's _wrong_ , I wanna know what.”  
  
Foggy laughs, rasping and unsteady. “I don't think you do.”  
  
Matt sets his own mug down and moves to stand directly across the counter from Foggy. He's getting freaked out and he wants to fold his arms around himself but he knows people take that kind of body language as _closed off_ , so he leans against the counter instead and says quietly, “Foggy. Please talk to me.”  
  
Foggy takes a shuddering breath and Matt tastes saltwater, wants to reach out and hold him and tell him everything will be okay, but he stays where he is and waits for Foggy to speak.  
  
“I – I – I've been, I've been trying t... I... Fuck, I _fucking hate sex_ , Matt, okay? I'm – I'm sorry, I don't, I don't know what the hell is _wrong_ with me, I just – I can't – I _can't_ – I can't do it anymore, I –”  
  
He stops talking, just buries his head in his hands and sits there and _shakes_.  
  
Matt is frozen. Of the dozens of worst-case scenarios running through his head, _this_ hadn't even made the auxiliary list. He shakes himself out of it, circles the counter and pulls Foggy to his feet, leads him out to the living room, murmuring in his ear along the way – “Hey, Foggy, _Foggy_ , that's fine, that's _fine_ , I'm sorry I've been putting you through that, this is – this is fine, no more sex, we'll _stop_ , it's all okay, there's _nothing_ wrong with you –”  
  
Foggy is marginally calmer by the time they've both settled onto the couch. Matt leaves some distance between them but Foggy pulls him closer. He rests his head on Matt's shoulder and for a while neither of them says anything.  
  
Finally, when Foggy has mostly stopped shaking, Matt speaks up. “Not trying to steal your thunder or anything, but, uh, this seems like a good time to mention I don't... actually like it, either.”  
  
Foggy chokes. “ _What_?”  
  
Matt shifts uncomfortably and takes a deep breath. “I don't... I don't hate it like you do, but I don't _like_ it. I've just been... going with it, because I thought you... Shit. Foggy, I'm _so_ sorry, I should have realized –”  
  
“No you shouldn't have, I was _hiding_ it!”  
  
“So was I!”  
  
“ _Shit_.” Foggy sinks farther into the couch and starts to laugh. “Shit. Wow. Okay. _Wow_ this is beyond fucked up.”  
  
“At least now we can stop?” Matt offers, tentatively.  
  
Foggy laughs again and then says nothing, for long enough that Matt starts to worry. “Uh – your heart rate is all over the place and you're being very quiet, can you kind of clue me in here, or...”  
  
“I'm just thinking,” Foggy says, calmly, “about all the _sex_ we could have not been having.”  
  
Matt chokes on a laugh and shakes his head. “What is _wrong_ with us? Uh, I mean, not, I don't think there's anything _wrong_ with us, but – but _what_ is  _wrong_ with us? What have we been _doing_?”  
  
“Not communicating,” Foggy says cheerily. Too cheerily. “Our specialty.”  
  
Matt sighs. “One day we're gonna run out of things to not communicate about.”  
  
“I sure hope so. I don't know how many more dramatic reveals I can take, from either side.”  
  
Matt punches his arm, lightly. Very lightly. Then he clears his throat. “What, um. So what do you actually _like_ to do?”  
  
“Most things that aren't sex. I kinda wanna try bungee jumping, what do you think?”  
  
Matt snickers, but shakes his head. “I'm being serious, Foggy. What kind of stuff is too far for you?”  
  
Foggy shrugs; Matt would be able to feel it against the couch even if he wasn't still making the effort to tune in to him specifically. “I don't know. I... I mean, I like kissing, but... Not... Not really with tongues.” Foggy's voice is getting shaky again; he pauses for breath and then continues: “And... And, I like... Sitting together, like this, I like _touching_ , just not... not while we're _naked_.”  
  
“No naked touching,” Matt deadpans. “Got it.”  
  
Foggy laughs again but it's a watery sound; Matt finds his hand and squeezes. “Anything else?”  
  
“No, no, I'm just... Ugh. I'm just _kicking_ myself, I've been... I've been so _freaked out_ all this time, you know? I... I like kissing but I _haven't_ liked it because it always turned into – into _tongues_ , and, just, I can't, I can't do that anymore, I don't think, I'm sorry, I just. And I like sitting like this, I like being _close_ , I like _touching_ , but I was – I've been – I've been _afraid_ of it because I was – I was always just _waiting_ for it to turn into something else, and I just –”  
  
He covers his face with the hand Matt isn't holding and takes a few shaky breaths. Matt reaches up, gently pulls his hand away, wipes the tears off his face. “It's okay, Foggy,” he says quietly. “No more sex, no more French kissing. No more of _anything_ we don't both want. Everything will be okay now.”  
  
“I know. I'm just. Really pissed off at myself.”  
  
“Well, stop it.”  
  
“I will if you will.”  
  
“Stop being pissed off at _you_?”  
  
“At yourself.”  
  
Matt squeezes his hand again. “It seems we have reached an impasse.”  
  
Foggy's laugh finally sounds right.

* * *

  
They are sitting up together in Matt's bed, and Matt is telling a story.  
  
“And then she's real quiet for a few seconds, like, I figure she's taking it all in and trying to find a polite way to dump me, and then she just _gasps_ , like, she's just realized she's the biggest _monster_ in the world, and she goes – 'is it because you're _blind_?'”  
  
Foggy laughs, loudly, before he can stop himself, purely out of shock. “ _Seriously_?”  
  
Matt is laughing too, but it's tinged with something else and he's had the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes for a while now. He shakes his head, giggling. “ _Seriously_. Like – like – oh, _silly_ me, I forgot, _blind_ people can't have sex!”  
  
“What the fuck, dude, I'm – I didn't mean to laugh, I'm sorry you had to deal with that.”  
  
Matt shrugs, and finally moves his hands away from his face. He's not even crying and Foggy is starting to resent being the only one who's made a huge emotional scene today.  
  
Not _really_. Of course not really. It's less that he wishes Matt would break down and more that he wishes he _hadn't_. He likes it better when they're on even ground.  
  
“Hmm.” Matt tilts his head and slides a little ways down the wall of pillows behind them, leaning into Foggy. “You're not gonna ask?”  
  
“Ask what?”  
  
“If it's because I'm blind?”  
  
“Hell no.”  
  
“Good.” Matt presses closer and Foggy can feel him shake when he breathes. “Because I don't know the answer.”  
  
Foggy says nothing. Brings one hand up to run his fingers through Matt's hair and waits for him to keep talking. It doesn't take long.  
  
“I mean, I don't _think_ it is. Like I really, _really_ don't think it is. But I don't have any...” Matt stops, and snorts. “I don't have enough _evidence_. It would never stand up in court.”  
  
“Good thing you're not on trial.”  
  
“I'm always on trial. I'm a very harsh judge and a very biased jury.”  
  
“I've noticed.”  
  
Matt turns his head and starts to curl up into a ball, burrowing more insistently against Foggy's side, and Foggy swallows down his instinctive panic because he _knows_ that's not where this is going.  
  
Matt must hear his heart skip a beat or something, because he pulls back and mutters, “Sorry.”  
  
“'s fine,” Foggy croaks.  
  
Matt shakes his head. “Not when you don't like it. Anyway. I... I don't know. I mean, I was blind before I hit puberty, so it's not like I can just say I wasn't interested in sex before it happened.”  
  
“Yeah, but no one can say you _were_ ,” Foggy counters.  
  
Matt makes a _noise_ that makes Foggy look down, and – oh. _Now_ Matt's crying. Foggy does not feel like they're on even ground. Foggy feels like shit.  
  
“Hey,” he says softly, alarmed, and wraps his arm around Matt. “ _Matt_ , hey, talk to me.”  
  
“I'm _fine_ ,” Matt growls, swiping angrily at his eyes. “I'm just. I know _exactly_ how she was looking at me, Foggy, you know? I could _hear_ it, I could hear it in her _voice_ , I know exactly the look she was giving me. I get it a lot, I _hear_ it a lot, people look at me and they think I'm _broken_ or something.”  
  
“Woah, hey, you're not –”  
  
“ _I_ _know_ I'm not! I'm just. Tired of other people thinking I am. That look, that tone of voice – when I was a kid, if I - if I had trouble, with _anything_  - when I was lying there _screaming_ because everything was too - was too _loud_ , I could _hear_ it, from - from some of the nuns. From the other kids. From the couples coming in, looking to adopt. It was like I just slapped them in the face, like they just remembered, _oh, right, this one's broken_. It was _that_ voice, _that_ look, but it was about _this_. Like being blind and not wanting sex were like – like these two _character flaws_ that I have, so she decided they must be _connected_.”  
  
“People are assholes,” Foggy says, firmly, and pulls Matt closer again.  
  
Matt scrambles to get away. “Foggy, _please_ don't make yourself uncomfortable for my sake.”  
  
“I'm not _uncomfortable_ , Matt, I'm still just. A little jumpy. It'll pass. Just wait, after like, the _third_ time we sit together like this and then _don't_ have sex, I'll be totally fine.”  
  
He was aiming for funny, but Matt still looks worried. “Are you sure?”  
  
“ _Yes_. Come here. Unless _you're_ uncomfortable.”  
  
“I'm good,” Matt says quietly, and crawls back across the bed. “I am – very, _very_ good with this.”  
  
“We probably should get up eventually, though,” Foggy muses, even as Matt settles beside him and even as he _knows_ they're going to stay exactly like this for at least another hour. “It's like noon, I can't start falling asleep at _noon_. Took forever to train myself out of the sleeping between classes schedule.”  
  
“It's a Saturday,” Matt points out, and he sounds half asleep already. “Saturdays are for sleeping.”  
  
“When they're not for beating up bad guys?”  
  
“Exactly.”  
  
“Easy for you to say, Murdock, you didn't actually drink any coffee.”  
  
“You had a _sip_.”  
  
“You make really strong coffee. I could run a marathon.”  
  
“Tell me all about it when you get back,” Matt mumbles, pressed up close against Foggy's side. His face is buried against a pillow and his words are muffled and barely intelligible. “Maybe I'll be awake by then.”  
  
Foggy lets him sleep. Noon or midnight, it makes no difference – Matt does not get enough sleep, ever, and Foggy will never complain when he decides, hey, maybe the natural human state _isn't_ constant exhaustion.  
  
So he holds as still as he can and concentrates on staying calm. Keeping his heart rate down. He _likes_ this. He likes being this close to Matt, likes holding him like this. He's still just... jumpy. Like he said. He's spent months and months learning that this comes at a price and that the sooner he mentally prepares himself for it, the easier it will be to get through, and it's probably going to take a lot longer than three instances of not-having-sex to work through that. They can talk about that some other time.  
  
They _will_ talk about that some other time.  
  
For now, Foggy smiles down at Matt, and thinks, _everything is gonna be okay now_.


End file.
